Extra Credit Reading Challenge

Response to Julie and Julia movie and book

Julie and Julia is the story of two very different women living in two very different times, connected by one thing, cooking. The Julia of the story is the famous Julia Child one of the authors of the widely known cook book, Mastering the Art or French Cooking. Julie is a young women living in the “outer boroughs” (as it is commonly referred to in both movie and book) who loves to write, but has ended up in a dead end secretarial job for families effected by 9/11. The story begins when Julie decides with the help of her husband and friends to start a blog. One year to cook her way though the entire Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook.

The basic story line of both movie and book are similar. For the first time I saw the movie before I read the book, before I knew about this project and before I knew there was a book. I liked the movie it was witty and growing up in a family where cooking is important I could understand the cooking terms. I am very, very sorry to say that I did not like the book. I want to make excuses to say that it is because I saw the movie first or maybe the weather for reading the book did not put me in the proper mode, but that was not it. It is very simple. The movie was good the book not so much. She is clearly a good writer but the book is written too much in a diary style where every little detail must be fit in and I could weed out about a paragraph of fluff in every page. The book though was well written and had a certain flow and language choice that kept me from throwing it agents the wall when it seemed the details about how to poach in egg would bore me to death. Maybe if I had anticipated a diary format I would have been more prepared and not as shocked.

I think many people will enjoy the movie Julie and Julia and if you like diary style books and cooking and every little detail of very little thing in this womens life you will enjoy the book.

First Draft Author's Note

Author’s Note
Everyday girls and boys everywhere are pressured to be “like everyone else.” Pressure comes from their peers, magazine ads and T.V commercials. Everyday girls feel pressure to change them selves. People who were confident suddenly find flaws and problems in the smallest things and the pressure to be perfect leads to drastic measures.

A good definition of social pressure comes from dictionary.com.

“The influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member (for example, political party, trade union), or a social clique. A person affected by peer pressure may or may not want to belong to these groups. They may also recognize dissociative groups with which they would not wish to associate, and thus they behave adversely concerning that group's behaviors.”

This definition is very helpful because of how general it is. The most important part of the definition is “encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms” this is all that is necessary for an understanding of social pressure.

I wanted my story to have a broad topic because I wanted people to understand the general idea of social pressure and not just one specific branch. I hope that my story spreads awareness for this general topic so that children will be aware of social pressure.

Social Pressure reserch

       Dictionary.com defines Social Pressure or Peer Pressure as,

refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member (for example, political party, trade union), or a social clique. A person affected by peer pressure may or may not want to belong to these groups. They may also recognize dissociative groups with which they would not wish to associate, and thus they behave adversely concerning that group's behaviors.

       This is one of the best most in depth definitions I have found with out reading an entire article.This does not beat around the bush it is direct it is truthful and it is a definition that I have found most useful during my research.

    Other then this definition I have not found many general sources of info on social pressure or peer pressure. The library home page took me to sirs which for my first topic I used and enjoyed, but was disappointed when I tried to research peer or social pressure I found mostly articles like http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=S44-4241-0-3872&artno=0000301708&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=Social%20pressure&title=Big%20in%20Japan%3F%20Fat%20Chance%20for%20Nation%27s%20Young%20Women.&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=N

    Which talk almost only about weight. What I want for my picture book is social pressure in general I want the pressure to be like everyone else. It is at times like this that I resort to google to find at least something. I found even less and mostly definitions like these 4 lines that do not help me at all http://priory.com/mbti5.htm.
Acidently I clicked images and got

This is more helpful then most of the articles and says more too.

 

Even websites for kids ages 4-8 have more info then most teen/adult sites.